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FUTURE of WARSHIPSComments by: John Webber, CET, CSS, Lt. (RCNR) Ret’d. This was triggered by the comments by Russian President Putinand my long time opinion that western politicians are more interested in the next election than defending their country.

President Putin implied that Russia has new weapons that we can't defend against.

His comments directly relate to the FUTURE of WARSHIPS.

The west is 10 years behind with its defences!

1. Putin implied he had a nuclear powered underwater weapon. That could launch a cruise missile. This is a game changer. It implies that he could launch this device from anywhere and could go undetected until it reached its target. AND, go 10 times the speed of sound. (Hypersonic)

2. The western nations warships would have difficulty defending against such hypersonic missiles at short ranges. Especially, if many were launched at the same time.

3. Western nations are 10 years behind in building new warships. The west spends too much time assessing and planning, instead of building a warship that can be updated quickly with new weapons as the designs are completed.

4. China is commissioning a new warship every 30 days. We take years to plan and build a warship. China implements design updates with EACH new warship. We wait until we design a new class of warship.

5. Western warships are locked into a class design system that take 10 years to build and complete trials. And designers always have something new on the drawing board that makes new warships obsolete when they are commissioned. Thus feeding into a ARMS RACE.

6. Russia, and maybe China are taking advantage of the "blank spaces". They see areas that have little or no defence. Such as, hypersonic speeds and deep underwater attack weapons. They are holes in our defences.

7. Canadian frigates have a strong defence against missile attack. The main gun, the Phalanx anti-missile gun, and anti-missile missiles are great against most missiles.

But, they may be very limited against a multiple hypersonic missile attack. If an attack missile has a passive optical intelligence guidance system, decoys and jamming sytems will not be effective. At hypersonic speeds, defence system must make decisions in miliseconds, and warships are totally dependent on the design of the speed and accuracy of their weapon software.

8. Communism has a great advantage over western democracy. It can make decisions quickly without going through a drawn-out process of approvals and budget approvals required under a democratic process.

9. Our politicians in the west are more concerned about getting elected than making long range decisions on our military defence. Western politicians have learned that they can cut defence budgets and spend on other things that bring in more votes.

10. Communists and dictatorships don't worry about obtaining votes. They just do it!

11. Are we entering a new era where unmanned weapons and ships could make warships OBSOLETE?